The Glasgow Cup 1887-1988

The Glasgow Football Association Cup was, in its time, an important
competition and had the status of a 1st Class competition. It was contested as
fiercely as the League or the Scottish Cup by member clubs who were senior clubs
in the Glasgow area. To the winners went a magnificent globular silver
trophy.Not surprisingly the competition was dominated by the two Glasgow
giants, Rangers and Celtic, but the others, Partick Thistle, Clyde, Queen's Park
and the late Third Lanark had their day too. After the Second World War the
Glasgow Cup diminished in status, mainly due to the more cosmopolitan fare
provided by European Competitions.Traditionally the Glasgow Cup had always
been played early in the season, with the Glasgow Merchant's Charity Cup
concluding the season after the completion of the Scottish League and Cup. After
the demise of the Charity Cup in 1960, Glasgow Cup fixtures were fitted into the
schedule at any convenient point with the Final being played at the end of the
season if at all. After 1971 the Glasgow Cup went into a 3 year hiatus. It was
resurrected for 1974-75 season but its appeal was limited and interest was
luke-warm at best. Sometimes the competition would be left incomplete, otherwise
the Final was often held over until the beginning of the following season.
However, when it came to an Old Firm final, Rangers and Celtic would usually put
out pretty much their full first teams. This was the case as late as 1986 when
on the Friday evening before the Scottish Cup Final, a capacity crowd of over
40000 saw Rangers take the trophy with a 3-2 win over the Scottish Champions,
Celtic, courtesy of an Ally McCoist hat-trick to give neo-phyte manager Graeme
Souness his first trophy just days after taking charge. This was essentially the
swan-song of the tournament as a 1st team tournament. Rangers retained the
trophy the following season in another Old Firm final, this time at Parkhead,
but only 15,000 were there to see what were effectively the reserve teams do
battle. The following season's contest was never completed; officially there
were no suitable dates available to fit ties in, but in reality the competition
was long past it's sell-by-date and as the days of the UEFA Champions' League
rapidly approached it had simply become irrelevant. In 1988 the competition as
such wsa abandoned and it was relaunched as an Under-18 tournament.